Wear Your Ambivalence

by John Pasden

08 Jul 2007

…or your indifference, or your befuddlement, or your joy of pushing people’s buttons. Wear one of these shirts:

The simple design in the t-shirts above is based on one I did in 2002 and called “Sinoamerica.” I like it largely because its meaning is so ambiguous. It’s unity, it’s harmony, it’s neutrality, it’s loss of identity. The colors stay blithely out of nationalism’s grasp.

For a long time I’ve liked the idea of designing t-shirts. Last year I did a tiny experiment in the form of a “Please speak Mandarin” t-shirt. I wanted to know if anyone would buy a t-shirt I put up. I figured if anyone went for something that simple, then it might be worth putting a little more effort into it. Well, some people did buy that design, and now that the weather is warm again, this is my second baby step in the t-shirt direction.

Anyway, I appreciate the support. I’ll be putting out a new t-shirt every Sunday this summer. Here are the links to buy this design: purple, green, brown, gray, the Sinosplice Store. Thanks!

Sorry but at first sight many people will confuse this flag with the Malaysian flag.
On the Malaysian flag there’s the moon and the sun.
On your flag there’s a star (sun like) and four little stars (moon like on the wrong direction).

Great design. Clean and nicely ambiguous, but does convey the merging of America and China in some friendly way. I’m not American, but I might go and buy one of the “please speak mandarin” shirts now instead. 🙂

John,
I’ve carried somes checks and in Malaysia it will be consider as the flag of a chinese-separatist-movement (pro-China and pro-Singapore) from the south and south-west of Malaysia.
It was also seen as the flag of a futur incorporated territories of the USA.

A Long Island housewife last year found herself in court for protesting the war by flying her flag upside down (the international signal of distress) … . last month Michael Sauter, 20, was arrested in Topeka for displaying on his car a flag decal with an overlaid peace symbol. .. when an Indianapolis art student hung the flag upside down in his apartment window, he was arrested and taken before a judge who declared: “It looks to me like we have before us one of those young men who want to destroy our society.”

In Illinois, the state legislature recently increased the penalty for defacing or showing contempt for the flag from a one-to a five-year jail term or a fine of $1,000 to $5,000. Peter Stowe, an economics professor at Southern Illinois University, was haled into court under the law. In their car’s rear window, his wife had stuck a flag decal with a peace sign where the stars should have been.

Although I identify with the thoughts and sentiment that inspired this design, my American self is oddly a bit offended by the image. Maybe it stirs up my personal struggle to keep my American identity after living in China for a few years……However, I love the “please speak mandarin” shirt.

Can you make the “please speak Mandarin” t-shirt in another color besides white. I mean i only need to drop one slippery jiaozi in the dipping sauce, splash myself, and that beautiful piece of propaganda’s history. How bout white characters on a black background?